Patrick Comerford
I have been writing in recent weeks about the restoration of the Etz Hayyim synagogue in Larissa, and the appeal to save the library beside the Etz Hayyim synagogue in Chania in Crete. Etz Hayyim or Tree of Life (כנסת עץ חיים, Ετζ Χαγίμ) is a name commonly used for Romaniote synagogues, and it was the name of one of the oldest synagogues in Thessaloniki.
It is not surprising then that there also a synagogue in Athens named Etz Hayyim. The Jewish community in Athens is the largest Jewish community in Greece, with over 3,500 members. Today, there are two synagogues in Athens, one facing the other, on Melidoni Street in the Thiseio area: the Beth Shalom Synagogue and the Etz Hayyim Synagogue.
There is historical and archaeological evidence of a Jewish presence in Athens dating back to the Hellenistic period. One early synagogues in Athens, dating back to the 2nd century CE, seems to have been identified in the Agora, at the foot of the Acropolis and the Parthenon. However, there is no evidence a Jewish presence in Athens for several centuries.
Jews began returning to Athens after Otto of Bavaria become the Greek king. During his reign, from 1832 to 1862, Athens was transformed from being a small market town with 4,500 residents into a modern European capital. Soon fter he became king, Otto told a group of leading Jewish figures that ‘he considered his kingdom blessed and honoured to contain within its bosom the biblical race of Israel’.
However, Otto’s attitude did not prevent outbreaks of antisemitism. In one of the best-known incidents, the ‘Don Pacifico Affair’, the warehouses of a Jewish businessman and British citizen, David Pacifico (‘Don Pacifico’, 1784-1854), were ransacked in the mid-19th century. The Irish-born diplomat Sir Thomas Wyse (1791-1862) from Waterford, who was the British minister or ambassador, responded swiftly, Britain intervened, and the port of Piraeus was blockaded in 1850 to secure substantial compensation.
The first Jewish community in Athens in modern times was organised formally in 1889. Before that, there were informal prayer meetings in many places, icluding the house of the Yussuroum family on the corner of Ermou street and Karaiskakis streets, often described as first synagogue in Athens. This was the heart of the Jewish quarter in Athens, between Aghion Asomaton Square, Sarri Street and Ermou Street.
The Jewish community in Athens was far smaller in size than the community in Thessaloniki, but relations between Jews in Athens and offiicials and the wider population were always better.
A reign of terror began with the German takeover of Athens during World War II. But prominent public figures, including Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens and the police chief Angelos Evert, worked tirelessly to defend the Jewish community. Evert later testified that he drew his inspiration from the actions, words, and deeds of Archbishop Damaskinos, who had urged the Greek people to save the remaining Jews of Greece. Both were honoured later by Yad Vashem as among the ‘Righteous among the Nations’.
Greece lost more of its Jewish population in the Holocaust, proportionately, than almost any other country in Europe during World War II. Around 65,000 men, women and children were sent to Auschwitz between 1941 and 1944, including about 1,000 Jews sent from Athens in April 1944 after thousands more had fled or had gone underground.
Etz Hayyim is the Romaniote synagogue and the oldest synagogue in Athens. It was built in 1904 by Greek Romaniote Jews from Ioannina, and so it is also known among the older members of the community as ‘Yanniotiki’ or ‘from Ioannina’.
Etz Hayyim can hold 300 people but now operates only on major holidays and special events. The synagogue is on the second floor of the building, while the ground floor was used by the Talmud Torah School, and part of it also served as the residence of the rabbi. The first mikveh in Athens was in the courtyard.
Outside, the building is neoclassical in style, while inside the atmosphere is traditionally Romaniote, with the bimah or teivah on the west wall and the holy ark or Aron haKodesh on the facing east wall, while the Torah scrolls are kept in wooden cases or tikim.
After World War II, the building served as a shelter for homeless survivors of the concentration camps, while the ground floor housed a community clinic. It was used in 1953 to accommodate Jews from earthquake-stricken Zakynthos who sought refuge in Athens.
The synagogue suffered serious damage from the 1999 earthquake, mainly to the roof. The entire building was renovated in 2006-2007 and officially reopened on 30 June 2007.
The Etz Hayyim Synagogue in Athens is now used only during High Holy Days and for the great religious celebrations. All regular religious ceremonies are held in the Beth Shalom Synagogue. Both synagogues are led by Rabbi Gabriel Negrin, who succeeded Rabbi Jacob Arar in 2014.
Across the street from the Etz Hayyim Synagogue, the Beth Shalom is a Sephardic synagogue built in 1935 and renovated in the 1970s. It can seat 500 people, and hosts all bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs, weddings, memorial services and visits.
The Holocaust Memorial nearby on Melidoni street was unveiled in 2010. The monument consists of stones laid down in the form of a Star of David set within a planted garden. The stones are engraved with the names of Greek towns and cities whose Jewish communities were destroyed during the Holocaust: Rhodes, Kos, Chania, Iraklion, Preveza, Patras, Zakynthos, Agrinion, Corfu, Ioannina, Kastoria, Florina, Arta, Trikala, Karditsa, Thessoloniki, Kavala, Drama, Serres, Xanthi, Larissa, Veroia, Volos, Halkis, Didimoticho, Athens, Komotini, New Orestiada, Soufli and Alexandroupolis.
The Lauder Athens Jewish Community School runs preschool and primary education programmes for more than 100 children. The Jewish cemetery in Athens is close to the Panathenaic stadium, in a section of the Third Cemetery of Nikaia.
The Jewish Museum of Greece, which faced the former royal garden for 20 years, has moved to a renovated neo-classical house in Plaka. It has collections from the Romaniote and Sephardic communities in Greece. The interior of the former Romaniote synagogue in Patras has been reconstructed on the ground floor.
After the Holocaust, there were still almost 5,000 Jews in Athens; today there are only 3,500, representing half of all Jews in Greece.
Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום
